It was a lovely sunny Sunday day. I was lazy at home so I decided to have a little bit of action in my life. So I head to DVD rent store (yes, we still have it in Hamburg) to pick a Rambo film. Why Rambo? Because I don't think I have ever seen a Rambo film from the beginning till the end. Not the kind of film I would look for watching, but I kind like to see old american action movies. Something related to historic screen culture from the past that I think is interesting. Brainless story, machine guns, a lot of explosion and people screaming of pain. Also for the photography. Why not!?

Once in the store the first DVD I found was The Revenant. It seems to had just arrived there. I read many comments about this film, shot entirely with wide angle lens and many long scene sequences. I went for it.

​I would not spend such beautiful day at home, of course. I had with me my tripod and my bag with my pinhole camera and some others photography tools inside. So I went to a cemetery near home, the biggest cemetery in Germany by the way. Perhaps the biggest cemetery of Europe. Its a kind of a park, people goes there tho walk, see the nature, cycle, even tourists following guides you find there sometimes. Nonetheless, a quite place.

Hamburg Friedhof

At one moment in the cemitery I felt tired of walking and I sat down on a bank. Gazing some flowers and graves on the other side of the path, just a few maters, listening to birds singing and feeling the warm wind. Like this I spend the next twenty or third minutes, until I heard somebody walking.

​An old man, about 70 years old, stop walking and said something to me in German. I told him in German that I could not understand what he sad, so I asked him to try again. So he tried but unfortunately I could not make out what he was saying. He went on in english from then on, asking me if I was meditating. I answered him I was chilling. He told me he comes every day in the cemetery, because it is a very quite, relaxing and beautiful place where he can connect with the "small things". He closes his eyes while talking as if in a meditative way. On that day he was going to visit a "younger" friend of him who was graved near by, the reason he was carring a Rose, a Daisy and a Sunflower in one of his hand, saying he likes very much Sunflowers.

Then he told me back in 60's, more or less, when he was about 30 years old, he heard in the radio they need workers in Hamburg harbor. So he went work in the harbor where he met people from all range of society. One of them was a photographer who he felt impressed by his tools and method of work.

He showed me a film camera while he was telling me the story. It was a pocket film camera, a automatic for amateurs. Kind of old that he received from a friend as gift. And I told him that I enjoyed film photography too. This is when he notice my tripod besides my bag, asking me if I am a photographer. I showed him my pinhole camera and he enjoyed very much look at it. He was excited, asking me to see my bag, telling me that the photographer he once met while working in the harbor years ago, had a bag full of equipments like mine. But it seems he was a bit disappointed because the hasn't find what he was looking for, which I supposed to be a lightmeter, that I had in its case and he hasn't recognized it.

I also learned he speaks portuguese. He told me in portuguese he spend a couple of months working in Rio de Janeiro many years ago. He also said he wasn't the brightest boy at school but he always had a deep interest on languages. I kind of notice while he was talking in Portuguese with me, that he could also speak French, because of some words sentence and pronunciation.

He continued his route to his "younger friend" graveyard but before leave, he told me the name of the path which we were on is called "silent path".

I left the place as he left. I found an other place to take the last photograph of the day, I worked on the photo exposure and continues heading home. Walking and tucking my tripod, I some how hurt my finger. It was quickly bloody. So I stopped in a beautiful fountain where I sat down on its border and washed my finger.

After washing my finger, I had a close look to the water and I notice many tiny tadpoles. I contemplated them swimming, telling myself it is both beautiful and weird creatures that have only one tail to move, but soon will become a jumpy frog.

My eyes suddenly focused on the bottom of the fountain, where I realized there was a freaking dead mouse. I looked around to see if I could find an other place to wash my hands again but there wasn't. I kept walking home thinking "What Rambo would do?".